[kwlug-disc] Trust in Musk.. or go to NextCloud

Fri Nov 11 15:48:26 EST 2022

Now Ars Technica is reporting (at
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-could-go-bankrupt-lose-billions-next-year-musk-tells-staff/
) that "Musk proposes turning Twitter into a bank to avoid bankruptcy"

On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 3:19 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> The $8 fee thing caused major problems with trolls impersonating important
> people and spreading disinformation. Here is a good writeup:
> https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/musks-twitter-chaos-tosses-outrageous-insulin-pricing-into-the-spotlight/
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2022, at 1:20 PM, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
>
> Well, it seems that Musk blinked this morning and pulled the $8 fee
> stuff..  or did he?  Who knows?  Was it him or one of his millions of
> impersonators?
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 12:50 PM Chris Frey <cdfrey at foursquare.net> wrote:
>
> Well said.  I think the only point I'd add would be to this:
>
> > There's been an unfortunate trend to increasing political polarization.
> In
> > the extreme form, it's the idea that objective reality doesn't exist,
> there
> > are no facts, only politicized opinions. This is being driven by people
> on
> > the far left and the far right. It's not just right wing people who need
> to
> > be fact checked. Extreme ideologies have been around for thousands of
> years,
> > nothing new here. What seems to make it worse is the magnifying effect of
> > social media like facebook and twitter. These are funded by advertising,
> so
> > to increase ad revenues you use an algorithmic feed that increases
> engagement
> > by preferentially showing people extremist content, because that content
> gets
> > more clicks.
>
> I'd love it if the "fact checking" was done by civilized free speech
> itself,
> enabled by a new twitter rather than imposed by outside "authorities",
> or even worse, advertiser interests.  Sometimes the authorities need
> to be fact checked too.
>
> - Chris
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 11:10:18AM -0500, Doug Moen wrote:
> > I have a different view of "what's wrong with twitter". The problem
> isn't specifically and only "Musk", Twitter has been criticized for years.
> >
> > There's been an unfortunate trend to increasing political polarization.
> In the extreme form, it's the idea that objective reality doesn't exist,
> there are no facts, only politicized opinions. This is being driven by
> people on the far left and the far right. It's not just right wing people
> who need to be fact checked. Extreme ideologies have been around for
> thousands of years, nothing new here. What seems to make it worse is the
> magnifying effect of social media like facebook and twitter. These are
> funded by advertising, so to increase ad revenues you use an algorithmic
> feed that increases engagement by preferentially showing people extremist
> content, because that content gets more clicks.
> >
> > The factors that made old Twitter toxic are:
> >  * It was a publically held company, and therefore motivated to grow
> user count and revenue by any means necessary, regardless of the social
> cost. Musk fixed that, Twitter is now privately held.
> >  * It was 90% funded by advertising, therefore it needs an algorithmic
> feed of the most inflammatory comment in order to maximize engagement and
> clicks. Except you censor the content that the ad companies object to. Musk
> wants to reduce or eliminate the dependency on ad revenue. We'll see if he
> figures that out.
> >
> > What does Musk think about algorithmic feeds? Mar 24: "Twitter algorithm
> should be open source". May 11: "Chronological tweets seem much better than
> what “the algorithm” suggests". These tweets are pre-acquisition. He's
> workshopped a lot of conflicting ideas recently, so we'll see.
> >
> > His Oct 27 tweet, "Dear Twitter advertisers", says positive things.
> Although he's pandering to advertisers, and you can interpret the following
> multiple ways, so we'll see.
> > > The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future
> of civilization to have a common digital town square where a wide range of
> beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.
> There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far
> right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and
> divide our society.
> > >
> > > In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has
> fueled and catered to these polarized extremes, as they believe that is
> what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is
> lost.
> > >
> > > That is why I bought Twitter. I didn't do it because it would be easy.
> I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I
> love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this
> goal, despite our best efforts, is a real possibility.
> > >
> > > That said, Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape,
> where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to
> the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where
> you can choose your desired experience according to your preference, just
> as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging
> from all ages to mature.
> >
> >  Musk says that his actions may drive Twitter into bankruptcy. That
> sounds positive: one less toxic social media site? Whether or not that
> happens, Musk wants to burn Twitter to the ground and replace it with
> something "better", and it's not impossible that the new thing might be an
> improvement. Now we just need somebody to kill Facebook and the others.
> >
> > Musk is an idealist who is motivated to make the world a better place.
> Eg, Tesla to move society away from fossil fuel consumption to address
> global warming, SpaceX to make humanity multi-planetary, removing an
> existential threat to our species. Money is just a means to these ends. His
> disinterest in money is made very clear by his treatment of Twitter, and
> half the criticism of his tenure as Twitter CEO is "but that's not how you
> run a business". He's also extremely driven, a terrible boss, manipulative,
> probably a narcissist. But as long as I don't have to work for him, there's
> a chance that his interventions might actually be a net positive for me. I
> can't know for sure, as only history will tell. I sure don't like
> everything he does, just some things.
> >
> > Do I want to use Twitter now, after having deleted my account years ago?
> Nope. If I wanted to microblog, Mastodon is decentralized and open source,
> with no ads or algorithmic feeds forced on me. Mastodon is growing quickly
> right now, and that's another good thing that has arisen from Musk's
> twitter acquisition. Yay Elon!
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 10, 2022, at 9:48 PM, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> > > A good summary of Twitter under Elon Musk, so far ...
> > >
> > > https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63593242
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